HG 

361 

VV4- 


UC-NRLF 


SB    37    7bD 


MISUSE 
OF 


LEGAL  TENDER 


SIDNEY   WEBSTER 


CM 

Si 

O 


LIBRARY 

OF    THE  / 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
Class 


MISUSE 
OF  LEGAL  TENDER 


BY 
SIDNEY  WEBSTER 


NEW    YORK 
D.    APPLETON    AND    COMPANY 

1893 


COPYRIGHT,  1893, 
BY  D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY. 


MISUSE  OF  LEGAL  TENDER. 


IT  is  the  necessary  duty  of  every  State 
to  prescribe  a  uniform  money  of  account — 
the  signs  and  figures  of  its  expression. 
Without  such  money  of  account,  enforced 
by  the  State  throughout  its  jurisdiction, 
justice  can  not  be  done  to  suitors  in  its 
courts  of  law,  nor  symmetrical  and  orderly 
statements  of  receipts  and  expenditures, 
debts  and  credits,  be  kept  in  its  public 
offices.  Therefore,  one  of  the  first  things 
the  Congress  did,  when  it  had  assembled 
under  the  new  Constitution,  was  to  declare 
that  "the  money  of  account  of  the  United 
States  shall  be  expressed  in  dollars  or  units, 
dimes  or  tenths,  .cents  or  hundredths." 
The  Federal  Constitution  having  used  the 


107497 


Misuse  of  Legal  Tender. 


word  "dollars"  twice — once  in  the  decla- 
ration that,  in  suits  at  common  law,  the 
right  of  trial  by  jury  shall  be  preserved, 
"where  the  amount  in  controversy  shall 
exceed  twenty  dollars  " — it  is  to  be  im- 
plied that  Congress  could  not  have  adopted 
any  other  unit. 

Another  function  of  the  State,  even 
more  necessary  and  important,  is  to  pre- 
scribe a  uniform  measure  of  value,  time, 
weight,  quantity,  distance,  in  which  con- 
tracts can  be  expressed,  and  by  the  judi- 
cial power  their  performance  enforced.  Of 
those  functions,  the  most  perplexing  for 
lawmakers  has  been  the  providing  of  a 
uniform  measure,  standard  and  unit  of 
value,  commonly  called  "money,"  which 
is  to  pass  freely  from  hand  to  hand,  and 
everywhere  be  accepted  without  regard  to 
the  credit  of  the  person  tendering  it.  Such 
money  is  to  be  not  only  the  common  de- 
nominator of  all  thinking  concerning  values, 
not  only  the  common  medium  for  buying, 


Misuse  of  Legal  Tender. 


selling,  exchanging  products  and  services, 
but  the  standard  by  which  to  foreknow  the 
value  of  a  contract  to  be  completed,  or  an 
act  to  be  done,  in  the  future. 

The  United  States  decided  to  make 
and  emit  all  American  money,  and  to  pre- 
scribe the  value  of  foreign  coins  the  circula- 
tion of  which  as  lawful  money  was  to  be 
permitted.  The  several  States  surrendered 
to  Congress  their  power  "to  coin  money, 
regulate  the  value  thereof,  and  of  foreign 
coin."  The  thing  by  comparison  -with 
which  the  value  of  every  other  thing  could 
be  ascertained  was  described  as  "  money." 
It  was  to  be  metallic.  Its  quantity  was,  un- 
til the  law  of  1853  relating  to  minor  silver 
coins,  determined  not  by  Congress,  but, 
under  free  coinage  of  silver  and  gold,  by  the 
quantity  of  those  metals  carried  by  indi- 
viduals to  the  mints  to  be  coined,  and  of 
those  coins  taken  back  to  the  melting  pots 
to  be  changed  into  bullion.  Thus  it  is  now 
under  the  free  coinage  of  gold.  Whoever 


Misuse  of  Legal  Tender. 


will  take  gold  to  the  mints  can  have  it 
freely  made  into  money.  Under  free  coin- 
age all  the  gold  in  the  world  is  potential 
money.  The  Congress  of  the  era  of  the 
Constitution  no  more  deemed  it  expedient 
to  prescribe  or  limit  the  quantity  of  money 
than  the  number  of  plows  or  hoes. 

Whether  the  first  Congress  embodied 
our  monetary  unit  in  a  silver  dollar  or  in  a 
gold  dollar,  or  the  unit  reposed  in  both 
metals  on  a  weight  ratio  of  an  ounce  of  gold 
to  fifteen  ounces  of  silver,  it  is  not  material 
now  to  inquire. 

The  standard  of  value  has  never  been 
any  sort  of  a  paper  dollar,  even  although 
the  greenback  dollar  was  after  1862  a  legal- 
tender  dollar. 

The  law  of  1873  having  declared  that  a 
one-dollar  coin,  containing  25%,  grains  of 
standard  gold,  "  shall  be  the  unit  of  value," 
made  that  dollar,  and  no  other  dollar,  to  be 
thereafter  the  legal  and  sole  measure  of  all 
value.  Whether  a  good  or  a  bad  standard, 


Misuse  of  Legal  Tender. 


it  is  the  standard  ordained  by  a  law  unre- 
pealed  and  unmodified.  It  became  then 
and  there  a  part  of  every  promise,  or  con- 
tract, thereafter  made  to  pay  a  dollar.  The 
standard  dollar  of  the  United  States  is  now 
embodied  in  that  metal,  and  only  in  that 
metal. 

It  is  familiar  knowledge,  that  laws  ex- 
isting at  the  time  and  place  of  a  contract 
form  a  part  of  its  validity,  its  construction, 
its  enforcement,  and  its  discharge. 

It  goes  without  saying  that  the  stand- 
ard of  value  which  is  a  part  of  a  contract 
should  not  be  changed  by  legislation  so  as 
to  impair  the  obligation  of  an  existing  con- 
tract, any  more  than  the  standard  of  quantity 
should  be  changed;  nor  when  a  debt  has 
been  created  by  a  contract,  the  payment  of 
which  is  long  deferred,  should  a  subsequent 
law  intentionally  change  the  medium  of 
payment  in  order  to  benefit  either  the  payer 
or  payee. 

It  is  bad  enough  and  deplorable  enough 


8  Misuse  of  Legal  Tender. 

when  a  standard  of  value  fluctuates  by 
natural  causes,  by  variations  in  the  demand 
or  supply  of  the  precious  metal  or  metals 
of  which  it  is  composed,  or  by  causes 
which  a  government  can  not  satisfactorily 
control.  An  absolutely  unvarying  stand- 
ard of  value  is  probably  an  unattainable  ob- 
ject, but  governments  can  at  least  abstain 
from  meddling  therewith  solely  in  order  to 
benefit  debtors  or  creditors,  and  transfer  the 
ownership  of  property. 

When  a  standard  of  value  has  been  es- 
tablished by  law,  that  dollar  which  is  the 
standard  of  value,  and  no  other  dollar, 
should  be  the  dollar  in  tender  of  payments. 

The  United  States  had  an  illuminating 
experience  of  a  depreciating  legal-tender 
dollar  which  fell  from  977.,  cents  in  January, 
18.62,  to  }8'/a  cents  in  July,  1864,  and  of  an 
appreciating  legal-tender  dollar  which  rose 
from  that  last  named  gold  value  to  100 
cents  in  1879.  The  United  States  have  had 
a  similar  experience  of  the  depreciation  of 


Misuse  of  Legal  Tender.  9 

the  gold  price  of  an  ounce  of  pure  silver, 
which  was  $i.3i3/IO  in  1834  (when  the  ratio 
was  changed  to  i  to  1 6),  $1.36  in  1859,  and 
is  now  75  cents. 

It  required  an  experience  like  that  of  our 
war  of  secession  to  teach  us  that  one  dollar, 
may  differ  from  another  in  value,  and  the 
dollar  of  to-day  may  be  less  or  more  in  value 
than  that  of  to-morrow. 

Not  less  difficult  than  keeping  a  dollar 
invariable  in  value  is  ascertaining  precisely 
the  increase  or  decrease,  from  time  to  time, 
of  the  purchasing  power  of  a  dollar.  The 
experts  are  not  many  whose  mental  and 
moral  equipment,  whose  experience  in 
trade,  are  such  as  to  dispel  all  suspicions  of 
doubt  of  the  accuracy  of  their  appreciations 
of  samples  and  averages,  quantities  and 
qualities,  and  of  their  deductions  from  tables 
of  prices. 

The  most  deplorable  effect  of  such  fluc- 
tuations in  a  standard  of  value  is  the  uni- 
versal deception  of  the  community  respect- 


io  Misuse  of  Legal  Tender. 

ing  the  increase  or  diminution  of  its  wealth, 
manifested  in  the  case  of  a  depreciating 
standard  by  extravagant  expenditure,  fol- 
lowed, when  the  bubble  bursts,  by  a  period 
of  long  depression. 

After  the  enactment  of  the  Sherman  law 
of  1890  the  United  States  had  only  one 
standard  dollar,  but  had  four  differing  dol- 
lars, each  available  as  tender  under  condi- 
tions specified  in  the  statute  enacting  each. 

The  discretion  given  by  Congress,  and 
exercised  by  each  successive  Secretary  of 
the  Treasury  since  the  resumption  of  specie 
payments  in  1879,  has  been  successful  in 
maintaining  parity,  within  the  jurisdiction 
of  the  United  States,  between  each  and  all 
of  those  dollars. 

If  the  law  shall  withdraw  that  discre- 
tion, or  if  a  future  Secretary  of  the  Treasury 
shall  reverse  the  policy  of  his  predecessors, 
refuse  to  redeem  with  the  standard  gold 
dollar  the  old  or  new  greenback  debt,  and 
refuse  gold  dollars  to  Congressmen,  judicial 


Misuse  of  Legal  Tender. 


officers,  officeholders,  pensioners,  and  other 
Government  creditors,  whenever  the  head 
of  the  Treasury  has  a  choice  between  pay- 
ing silver  or  gold  dollars,  the  real  condition 
of  our  enactments  concerning  tender  will 
leap  to  light. 

If  the  transaction  of  selling,  buying,  de- 
livering, paying,  is  instantly  finished,  the 
quality  or  value  of  the  currency  which  is 
the  medium  of  the  exchange  may  not  be 
important.  The  delivering  and  paying  be- 
ing simultaneous,  disputes  will  not  be  likely 
to  appear,  growing  out  of  differences  re- 
specting the  dollars  of  payment,  and  requir- 
ing for  settlement  the  aid  of  suits  at  law  to 
recover  damages  for  nondelivery  of  the 
article  purchased  on  tender  of  the  price,  or 
of  a  suit  in  equity  to  enforce  a  specific  de- 
livery. But  when,  by  the  contract,  payment 
is  a  long  time  deferred,  as  in  the  case  of  a 
railway  bond  not  due  and  payable  till  a  half 
century  after  its  date,  uncertainty  in  regard 
to  the  medium  of  payment  created  by  the 


12  Misuse  of  Legal  Tender. 

possibility  of  legislation  intended  to  affect 
that  medium,  and  so  modify  the  contract, 
can  but  be  disturbing. 

Precisely  that  uncertainty  is  what  is 
now  so  alarming  investors,  owners  of 
loanable  capital,  and  every  one  who  has, 
or  hopes  to  have,  money  at  interest  the 
payment  of  which  is  deferred.  The  real 
cause  is  the  misuse  of  legal  tender  in  and 
since  1862,  the  vindication  by  the  Supreme 
Court  of  that  misuse,  and  the  possibility  of 
new  legislation  in  the  same  direction  which 
will  impair  or  modify  the  obligation,  ex- 
pressed or  implied,  of  existing  contracts. 

There  is  even  distrust  whether,  in  any 
contract  for  the  future  payment  of  dollars, 
the  dollars  can  be  so  described  as  to  escape 
legislation  modifying  the  contract  in  respect 
to  the  possible  dollars  of  legal  tender. 

The  States  denied  to  themselves  by  the 
Constitution  the  right  to  emit  "bills  of 
credit,"  meaning  thereby  a  promise  to  pay 
money,  issued  directly  by  the  State,  involv- 


Misuse  of  Legal  Tender. 


ing  the  credit  of  the  State,  and  intended,  on 
such  credit,  to  circulate  in  the  ordinary  uses 
of  business,  and  the  Supreme  Court  has  de- 
cided that  notes  issued  by  banks  chartered 
by  a  State  are  not  the  forbidden  "bills  of 
credit." 

In  that  condition  of  the  law,  and  with 
no  lawful  money  possible  besides  metallic 
money,  why  was  there  need  of  a  thing 
called  "  legal  tender  "  ?  Why  did  the  Con- 
stitution declare,  and  why  did  the  States 
consent  to  the  declaration,  that  "no  State 
shall  make  anything  but  gold  and  silver 
coin  a  tender  in  the  payment  of  debts  "  ? 

The  term  of  the  Constitution  is  "tender," 
not  "legal  tender."  It  applies  only  to  a 
"debt,"  which  is  a  definite  and  fixed  sum 
of  money  due  by  one  individual  to  another. 
It  may  be  created  by  contract,  statute,  or 
judgment.  A  promise  by  an  individual,  or 
a  judicial  decree  in  equity,  to  deliver  a  horse, 
or  a  ton  of  silver  bullion,  does  not  create  a 
"debt."  A  promise  or  a  judgment  to  pay 


14  Misuse  of  Legal  Tender. 

a  definite  sum  in  "dollars"  does  create  a 
"debt,"  and  the  law  of  "tender"  applies. 
"Tender  "  is  in  all  law— Roman,  French, 
English,  or  American — a  part  of  the  law  of 
"payment,"  and  is  treated  as  such.  It  is 
technically  applicable  only  to  contracts  for 
the  payment  of  money.  It  is  payment  duly 
proffered  to  a  creditor,  which  may  be  ren- 
dered abortive  by  the  act  of  the  creditor. 
Under  the  Code  Napoleon  (Title  III,  §  1258) 
a  legal  tender  must  be  made  through  a 
ministerial  officer.  The  effect  of  a  valid 
tender,  if  rejected,  is  not  to  discharge  the 
debt,  but  to  enable  the  debtor,  when  sued 
for  the  debt,  to  pay  the  money  into  court, 
and  get  judgment  for  such  cost  of  his  de- 
fense as  accrued  after  the  tender.  If  a  State 
can  not  be  sued,  then  the  law  of  tender  does 
not  apply  to  the  State.  One  may  have  con- 
tracted to  deliver,  at  a  specified  time  and 
place,  a  ton  of  pure  gold,  may  refuse  or 
fail  to  deliver,  and  then  a  suit  can  be  begun 
for  damages  to  be  proved  and  assessed  in 


Misuse  of  Legal  Tender.  15 

dollars.  In  such  a  case,  as  a  "debt"  by 
judgment  is  impending,  a  tender  is  appli- 
cable. 

How  a  legal-tender  prohibition,  appli- 
cable to  the  States  in  the  Union,  came  to 
pass,  can  best  and  easiest  be  appreciated 
by  reading  the  statutes  of  any  one  of  the 
several  States  enacted  or  in  force  contem- 
poraneously with  the  framing  of  the  Federal 
Constitution. 

Those  statutes  enable  the  defendant  in 
every  action  of  debt,  covenant,  trespass, 
trover,  slander,  or  libel,  to  make  and  plead 
a  tender,  or  bring  into  court  the  money 
due  on  such  contract,  or  sufficient  amends 
for  such  trespass  or  injury,  as  well  as  the 
plaintiffs  costs  up  to  the  time  of  tender ; 
and  if  the  plaintiff  refusing  it  shall  go  on 
with  his  suit,  and  the  damages  finally  as- 
sessed shall  not  be  more  than  the  tender, 
the  plaintiff  shall  not  recover  costs,  and 
shall  pay  to  the  defendant  his  costs. 

One  readily  discerns  that  a  motive  and 


1 6  Misuse  of  Legal  Tender. 

a  purpose  of  such  a  legal-tender  law  was 
to  stop  litigation  and  benefit  a  deserving 
defendant.  The  chief  motive  was  not  to 
benefit  a  particular  coinage,  or  currency,  as 
by  compelling  individuals,  strangers  to  the 
transaction,  to  take  as  money  something 
the  Government  had  given  as  evidence  of 
its  own  indebtedness,  or  to  accept  a  sub- 
sidiary and  inferior  coin  not  a  unit  of  value, 
which  coin  was  made  by  Congress  only  to 
furnish  a  market  for  the  product  of  certain 
silver  mines! 

A  comparison  of  the  greenback  legisla- 
tion of  1862,  the  silver-dollar  coinage  enact- 
ment of  1878,  the  Sherman  law  of  1890, 
with  the  foregoing  very  elementary  exposi- 
tion of  the  real  purpose  of  "legal  tender," 
will  make  obvious  how  it  has  been  misap- 
plied by  Congress. 

The  enactment  of  February  21,  1853,  re- 
ducing the  weight  of  half-dollar,  quarter- 
dollar,  dime,  and  half-dime  silver  coins,  de- 
serves brief  mention  here.  Then  began 


Misuse  of  Legal  Tender.  17 

Treasury  purchasing  and  coining  of  silver 
solely  on  Government  account  In  1834, 
when  our  coinage  ratio  was  i  to  16,  and 
silver  on  that  ratio  $1.29  an  ounce,  the 
actual  price  in  Europe  was  over  $1.31,  in 
1853  was  $1.34,  and  in  1859  was  $1.36. 
No  silver  could  remain  with  us  on  those 
terms.  To  prevent  the  departure,  the 
weight  of  the  half-dollar  was  in  1853  re- 
duced from  2o6T/4  standard  grains  to  192 
grains,  or  some  seven  per  cent ;  the  sub- 
multiples  were  reduced  in  proportion,  and 
made  a  legal  tender  for  sums  not  over 
five  dollars.  Then,  for  the  first  time,  our 
silver  coins  were  not  all  a  full  legal  tender. 
They  have  never  all  been  such  since  then, 
as  will  be  discerned  further  on.  Silver  be- 
gan to  fall  from  $1.36  an  ounce  to  its  pres- 
ent price,  but  nevertheless  there  was  no 
effort,  forty  years  ago,  to  make  the  under- 
weighted  coins  a  full  tender  in  payment  of 
debts. 

The  Congress  which  met  after  the  presi- 


1 8  Misuse  of  Legal  Tender. 

dential  election  of  1860  found  the  Treasury 
in  need  of  money.  Unprecedented  expendi- 
tures were  in  sight.  Only  two  methods  of 
obtaining  money  were  thought  of  during 
1 86 1,  namely,  taxing  and  borrowing,  as 
was  done  for  the  War  of  1812,  and  for  the 
Mexican  War,  when  our  finances  were  kept 
on  a  metallic  basis.  In  July  and  August  of 
that  year  the  emission  of  Treasury  notes 
"in  exchange  for  coin"  was  authorized. 
They  did  not  bear  any  interest ;  they  were 
redeemable  on  demand;  they  were  to  be 
accepted  for  all  Government  dues.  No  legal- 
tender  power  was  given  to  them.  The 
sub-Treasury  law  was  suspended  to  enable 
the  coin  obtained  to  be  deposited  in  "sol- 
vent specie-paying  banks,"  thence  to  be 
withdrawn  by  checks.  After  the  battle  of 
Bull  Run  the  banks  took  a  hundred  and 
fifty  million  of  the  loan,  expecting  the 
Treasury  to  permit  the  money  to  be  depos- 
ited with  them,  and  by  the  Treasury  drawn 
out  by  checks  as  needed ;  but  the  Treasury 


Misuse  of  Legal  Tender. 


having  demanded  gold  immediately,  the 
demand  compelled  the  banks  to  suspend 
specie  payments,  and  a  crisis  was  at  hand. 
The  Treasury,  by  one  blow,  "broke"  the 
banks  and  itself ! 

In  the  beginning  of  1862  two  plans 
were  before  the  House  Ways  and  Means 
Committee  for  meeting  the  crisis  and  ob- 
taining funds  and  supplies  for  the  war.  In 
both,  notes  were  to  be  issued,  not  bearing 
interest,  but  receivable  for  Government 
dues.  The  two  plans  differed  in  respect  to 
legal-tender  power.  There  were  in  the 
committee  two  contending  schools  of  eco- 
nomic thought.  One  was  led  by  Mr.  Mor- 
rill,  of  Vermont,  and  the  other  by  Mr. 
Spaulding,  of  New  York.  The  former  in- 
sisted that  the  new  notes  would  circulate 
without  attaching  thereto  the  legal-tender 
quality ;  that  the  circulation  would  be  ade- 
quately secured  by  making  them  receivable 
for  all  national  taxes,  dues,  and  loans ;  that 
if  cheaper  than  coin  they  would  be  preferred 


20  Misuse  of  Legal  Tender. 

by  one  class,  the  debtors  and  purchasers; 
that  no  appreciable  and  useful  advantage 
would  be  gained  by  compelling  creditors  to 
receive  them  in  satisfaction  of  pre-existing 
debts,  even  if  Congress  had  the  right  to 
make  them  a  legal  tender.  The  other  school 
substantially  conceded  the  unconstitution- 
ally of  the  legal-tender  feature  of  a  credit 
currency  in  time  of  peace,  but  contended 
that  the  new  notes  would  not  circulate  un- 
less those  taking  them  for  supplies  sold  to 
the  Government  could  compel  their  credit- 
ors, and  all  creditors,  to  take  them  for  ante- 
cedent debts  payable  in  dollars,  thus  mak- 
ing the  notes  a  sort  of  forced  loan,  if  any 
loan  at  all.  After  two  months'  debate,  the 
party  led  by  Mr.  Spaulding  won,  and  in  a 
little  more  than  a  twelvemonth  some  four 
hundred  and  fifty  millions  of  the  notes  were 
issued.  In  July,  1864,  their  gold  value  was 
only  38  cents,  and  the  price  of  what  the 
Government  purchased  with  the  notes  was 
increased  nearly  300  per  cent.  The  Gov- 


Misuse  of  Legal  Tender.  21 

ernment  received  on  an  average  about  par 
in  notes  for  its  bonds  sold,  but  only  half  as 
much  in  gold,  even  although  the  selling 
agents  made  implied  promises  that  the 
bonds  should  be  paid  in  that  metal.  In  the 
presence  of  the  four  hundred  and  fifty  mil- 
lions of  greenbacks,  gold  and  silver  fled 
away,  as  now  gold  departs  in  presence  of 
one  hundred  and  forty-seven  millions  of 
Sherman  notes  emitted  since  1890. 

Congress  did  not  give  to  the  new  notes 
a  legal-tender  power  in  order  to  promote 
the  administration  of  justice  in  our  courts, 
or  to  protect  from  costs  of  litigation  a  de- 
fendant tendering  what  was  lawfully  de- 
mandable  from  him,  or  to  prevent  lawsuits, 
but  to  float  Government  bills  of  credit,  and 
benefit  a  new  form  of  credit  currency.  It 
was  much  as  if,  under  an  "  eight-hour  law" 
for  laboring  men,  Congress  doubled  or 
diminished  by  half  the  length  of  an  hour, 
in  order  to  promote  the  sale  of  a  new  kind 
of  clock  in  which  Congress  was  interested, 


22  Misuse  of  Legal  Tender. 

and  made  the  changed  hour  apply  to  pre- 
existing contracts  for  labor!  It  was  a  ter- 
rible arraignment  of  the  legal-tender  legis- 
lation of  1862  which  the  Supreme  Court  ut- 
tered by  the  pen  of  Chief-Justice  Chase,  in 
the  decision  in  the  case  of  Hepburn  vs.  Gris- 
wold,  when  he  wrote : 

"The  legal-tender  quality  was  only  valu- 
able for  the  purpose  of  dishonesty.  Every 
honest  purpose  was  answered  as  well,  and 
better,  without  it." 

The  second  dealing  by  the  Government 
with  legal  tender  was  in  1878,  when  Con- 
gress, having  in  1875  ordered  the  green- 
back debt  to  be  paid  and  destroyed  after 
1879,  required  the  paid  greenbacks  to  be  re- 
issued. That  was,  in  effect,  a  new  creation 
of  new  notes  and  of  new  debt,  in  time  of 
peace  and  without  war  necessity.  Con- 
gress did  not  venture  to  expressly  attach  a 
legal-tender  faculty  to  the  new  bills  of  credit, 
but  the  Supreme  Court  did,  in  Juilliard's 
case. 


Misuse  of  Legal  Tender. 


In  the  same  year  of  currency  woe  came 
the  law  "to  authorize  a  silver  dollar  and  to 
restore  its  legal-tender  character."  Then 
the  coining  ratio  of  silver  and  gold  was  by 
law  i  to  16;  the  market  ratio  was  i  to  18; 
the  coining  value  of  an  ounce  of  silver  was 
$1.29  in  gold,  but  the  market  value  was 
$1.15,  and  of  a  silver  dollar  was  only  q8T/IO 
cents.  Those  new  silver  dollars  Congress 
made  a  "legal  tender  at  their  nominal  value, 
for  all  debts  and  dues,  public  and  private, 
except  where  otherwise  expressly  stipulated 
in  the  contract."  Here,  as  in  1862,  the 
motive  and  purpose  were  to  use  legal  tender 
to  float  a  currency.  The  plan  of  1853  was 
adopted,  only  adding  more  legal-tender 
faculty.  The  new  silver  dollar  was  not 
made  a  full  legal  tender,  inasmuch  as  cer- 
tain debts  were  excepted,  but  the  misem- 
ployment  of  legal  tender  was  all  the  same. 

The  contention  of  Mr.  Bland  is  that,  up 
to  1873,  the  silver  dollar,  containing  _37r/4 
grains  of  pure  silver,  was  the  unit  of  account 


24  Misuse  of  Legal  Tender. 

and  standard  of  value  ;  but  even  if,  in  that 
year,  the  gold  dollar  of  258/IO  standard  grains 
was  made  the  sole  unit  and  standard,  yet 
his  law  of  1878,  "for  the  coinage  of  the 
standard  silver  dollar,  and  to  restore  its  legal- 
tender  character,"  displaced  the  gold  and 
replaced  the  silver  standard.  A  miscon- 
struction and  snare!  Recoinage,  and  limited 
legal-tender  power,  did  not  made  the  re- 
stored silver  dollar  a  unit  and  measure  of  all 
values.  And,  besides,  the  full  legal-tender 
power  of  1792  was  not  in  1878  given  to 
silver. 

It  is  quite  true  that,  when  specie  pay- 
ments were  resumed  in  1879,  recoinage  of 
the  silver  dollar  had  gone  on  a  year,  and 
that  the  new  silver  dollar  law  entered,  with 
its  legal-tender  attachment,  like  every  other 
pertinent  law,  into  every  contract  to  pay 
dollars  thereafter  made  in  the  United  States. 
It  is  also  quite  true  that  every  debt  of  the 
United  States,  subsequently  created  and 
specifically  payable  in  "coin,"  can  in  the 


Misuse  of  Legal  Tender.  25 

discretion  of  the  Treasury  be  discharged  by 
the  tender  of  silver  dollar  coin,  but  even 
that  legal-tender  faculty  does  not,  and  did 
not  in  1878,  make  the  silver  dollar  the  unit 
and  standard  of  value.  The  "  parity  "  dec- 
laration in  the  Sherman  law  would,  were 
there  nothing  else,  cut  out  by  the  roots  Mr. 
Eland's  contention.  His  speeches,  urging 
free  coinage  as  a  means  of  lifting  the  silver 
in  the  silver  dollar  to  a  commercial  parity 
with  the  gold  in  the  gold  dollar,  recognize 
the  fact  that  the  silver  dollar  has  depreciated 
below  the  standard  gold  dollar.  He  would 
elevate  silver  up  to  the  standard !  He  does 
not  propose  to  reduce  the  number  of  grains 
of  standard  gold  in  the  gold  dollar,  but,  if 
he  shall  fail  to  get  free  coinage  on  a  basis  of 
i  to  1 6,  he  would  increase  the  weight  and 
size  of  the  silver  dollar  so  that  it  shall  con- 
form to  the  gold  dollar.  He  vociferates 
against  the  gold  bug,  but  yet  pleads  in  the 
same  shrill  notes  that  the  silver  bug  is  to 
be  lifted  into  a  present  commercial  and 


26  Misuse  of  Legal  Tender. 

world-wide  equality  and  equivalence  with 
the  other  bug. 

Finally,  in  1890,  came  a  still  more  dis- 
astrous misapplication  of  legal  tender  at  a 
time  when  neither  war  nor  any  other  public 
necessity  constrained  it,  because  applied  to 
a  pure  credit  currency.  The  motive  was  the 
purchase  of  silver  bullion,  not  all  to  be  ne- 
cessarily coined,  but  to  be  in  part  a  ware- 
housed and  useless  Government  asset.  The 
Government  not  having  the  ready  money 
with  which  to  pay  for  the  purchases,  it  was 
proposed  to  issue  Treasury  notes  predicated 
on  and  measured  by  the  gold  value  of  the 
silver  when  bought;  and  so,  precisely  as  in 
the  war  period  of  1862,  Congress  attached 
a  legal-tender  faculty  to  the  notes  issued  as 
Government  debt  to  those  selling  silver  bul- 
lion to  the  Government.  In  order  to  float 
the  more  than  one  hundred  and  forty-seven 
millions  of  Treasury  notes  now  outstanding 
for  silver  purchases  since  1890,  Congress 
said  in  effect  to  the  sellers  of  the  silver, 


Misuse  of  Legal  Tender.  27 

that  the  law  will  compel  every  creditor  to 
accept  the  notes  in  discharge  of  anybody's 
debt,  "except  where  otherwise  expressly 
stipulated  in  the  contract."  The  old  ex- 
ception of  1869  and  1878  was  paraphrased. 
The  motive  and  purpose  of  1890  were  to 
again  dishonor  legal  tender  by  making  it  a 
float  for  the  Sherman  Treasury  notes  emitted 
in  exchange  for  silver. 

The  tender  of  payment,  to  prevent  or 
stopjitigation,  or,  if  the  suit  can  not  be  pre- 
vented or  stopped,  to  compel  the  plaintiff  to 
pay  all  the  costs,  is  not  a  frequent  event. 
If  the  tender  be  made  in  any  sort  of  circu- 
lating currency,  such  as  bank  notes,  it  will 
be  valid  unless  the  creditor  specifically  ob- 
jects to  the  kind  of  dollars  tendered.  But 
when  such  formality  shall  be  required,  it  is 
obvious  that  only  the  dollar  which  is  by 
law  the  "unit  of  value,"  the  standard  of  all 
value,  and  an  unlimited  legal  tender  (which 
no  greenback  or  silver  dollar  is),  should  be 
used.  Take  away  from  the  silver  dollars 


' 


28  Misuse  of  Legal  Tender. 

and  paper  dollars  legal-tender  power  in  the 
law  courts,  and  fear  of  repudiation,  or  scal- 
ing down  of  debts  thereby,  will  disappear. 
The  United  States  have  now  some  seventy 
million  dollars  of  minor  silver  coinage,  but 
that  mass  excites  no  solicitude,  and  would 
not  if  ten  times  as  much,  because  it  can  not 
under  the  law  of  1879  be  a  tender  for  over 
ten  dollars  in  one  payment. 

In  presence  of  the  divergencies  and  the 
uncertainties  of  opinion  in  respect  to  the 
future  of  silver  among  currency  experts 
and  those  who  are  responsible  for  the  man- 
agement of  the  treasuries,  the  mints,  and 
the  mines  of  the  world,  it  is  becoming  a 
lawyer,  not  professing  to  be  an  expert 
therein,  to  be  reserved  in  the  expression 
of  an  opinion  on  the  subject.  But  even  a 
mere  lawyer  may  perhaps  be  permitted  to 
think  that  a  metal  so  unstable  in  price  as 
silver  has  been  since  1859,  when  its  value 
was  $1.36  an  ounce,  is  not  suitable  for  the 
embodiment  of  a  unit  and  standard  of  all 


Misuse  of  Legal  Tender.  29 

value,  and  for  an  unlimited  legal  tender. 
It  may  be  that  gold  has  risen  in  price,  and 
silver  has  not  fallen  in  price  sixty-six  cents 
an  ounce  in  thirty-four  years ;  but  the  rise 
of  gold  or  fall  in  silver,  whichever  it  may 
be,  began  nearly  a  dozen  years  before  the 
Franco-German  War,  the  German  change 
from  a  silver  to  a  gold  standard,  the  Amer- 
ican adoption  in  1873  of  a  unit  of  value  ex- 
clusively gold  (which  is  here  and  there  de- 
nounced as  a  crime  done  in  concealment), 
and  the  closing  of  the  mints  of  the  Latin 
Union  to  silver. 

The  rise  in  the  price  of  gold  and  the  fall 
in  the  gold  price  of  commodities  are  only 
different  terms  describing  the  same  thing. 
Possibly  the  appreciation  of  gold,  and  not 
man's  inventions,  hammered  down  the 
prices  of  commodities;  but,  contemporane- 
ously, the  wages  of  labor,  the  income  of  pro- 
fessional men — clergymen,  lawyers,  physi- 
cians, surgeons,  and  teachers — the  salaries 
of  those  who  conduct  exchanges  and  great 


50  Misuse  of  Legal  Tender. 

enterprises,  have  increased  enormously. 
During  the  memory  of  living  man  the  annual 
interest  to  be  paid  for  borrowed  capital  has 
diminished  over  fifty  per  cent. 

If  the  gold  price  of  bodily  and  mental 
labor  has  risen,  and  the  rate  of  interest  to 
be  paid  by  borrowers  has  fallen,  will  a  con- 
temporaneous rise  in  the  price  of  gold  injure 
debtors,  even  although  they  have  to  pay 
what  will  buy  more  commodities  than  it 
would  have  bought  when  they  borrowed, 
so  long  as  those  commodities  can  be  pro- 
cured with  proportionately  less  of  such 
bodily  and  mental  labor?  But,  however 
that  may  be,  a  fluctuating  dollar  is  none  the 
less  an  evil. 

It  is  noteworthy  that  none  of  those  pre- 
dicting national  woes  if  Congress  shall  cease 
annually  buying  and  warehousing  fifty-four 
million  ounces  of  silver,  tell  us  of  the  future 
production  and  price  of  silver  when  the 
cessation  shall  have  taken  place.  Will 
silver  keep  on  fluctuating  in  price,  or  will  it 


Misuse  of  Legal  Tender.  31 

sink  to  a  price  measured  by  the  lowest  cost 
and  profit  of  improved  methods  of  extrac- 
tion, and  remain  reasonably  stable  around 
that  pivot  price?  Was  the  great  fall  in 
the  price  of  steel  rails  a  calamity?  As 
merely  a  commodity,  silver,  at  fifty  cents  an 
ounce,  will  be  more  accessible  than  now  to 
those  of  moderate  means  who  will  be  so 
glad  to  have  silver  forks,  spoons,  teapots, 
coffee-pots,  and  all  the  beautiful  ornaments 
into  which  silver  can  be  worked — will  it 
not  ?  As  a  money  metal,  as  currency,  or 
even  as  a  unit  of  value,  a  diminished  price 
*  may  not  be  fatal  to  its  use  if  that  price  is 
stable  and  fixed.  Indeed,  silver  when  stable 
at  fifty  cents  an  ounce  will  be  more  suitable 
for  a  money  measure  than  when  tumbling 
down  from  $1.36  an  ounce  in  1859  to  sev- 
enty cents  an  ounce  in  1893. 

All  the  governments  of  the  world  enter- 
ing into  treaty  stipulations  with  one  another 
to  throw  wide  open  all'  their  mints  to  the 
free  coinage  of  full  legal-tender  silver  coin 


Misuse  of  Legal  Tender. 


and  gold  coin,  on  a  fixed-weight  ratio, 
can,  by  the  thumbscrew  of  legal  tender, 
probably  lift  the  price  of  silver  or  depress 
the  price  of  gold  (whichever  be  the  proper 
phrase)  to  a  parity  at  1  5%  to  i  ;  but  what 
can  the  United  States  do  if  there  shall  be 
refusal  at  London,  Berlin,  Paris,  Vienna, 
Madrid,  and  Rome  ?  Washington  can  not 
by  war,  even  by  the  aid  of  its  "white 
squadron,"  compel  international  bimetal- 
lism —  can  it  ?  Concerted  action  by  all  the 
nations  can  make  an  international  court 
for  the  adjustment  of  international  differ- 
ences, and  peaceful  arbitration  the  universal 
rule,  and  can  thus  bring  to  pass  the  end  of 
armed  strife,  and  the  opening  of  the  happy 
day  when  nations  shall  learn  war  no  more 
and  prepare  for  war  no  more.  But,  unfor- 
tunately, the  coming  of  international  bimet- 
allism now  seems  postponed  to  as  far  off  a 
future,  thanks  largely  to  the  doings  of  the 
American  Congress  in  1878  and  1890,  as  is 
that  "Congress  of  Nations  "  for  which  good 


Misuse  of  Legal  Tender.  33 

men  in  the  Old  World  have  longed  and 
labored,  and  died  without  the  sight.     Mr. 
Gladstone's  Government,  now  holding  the 
key  of  the  position,  seems  at  this  moment 
as  likely  to  overthrow  the  gold  monome- 
tallic standard  as  to  stipulate  by  treaty  that 
Parliament  shall  enact  the  McKinley  law,  or 
throw  into  the  Thames  the  "Old  Lady  of 
Threadneedle  Street, "  with  all  her  treasures. 
The  problem  now  presented  by  silver  is 
in  one  aspect  colossal  in  its  complexity!     It 
is  a  part  of  the  currency  problem  which 
occupies  Europe,  America,  and  Asia,  super- 
seding for  the  moment  the  problem  of  taxes 
and  their  incidence.      In   dealing  with  it, 
the  greatest  experts  "audibly  acknowledge 
hesitation."   But  all  agree,  it  is  to  be  hoped, 
that  the  unit  of  value,  the  standard  of  de- 
ferred payments,  the  full  legal-tender  money, 
with  which  all  token  currency,  all  fiduciary 
currency,  all  the  "  counters"  for  small  trans- 
actions shall  conform,  ought  to  be  embodied 
only  in  a  stable  metal,  or  in  stable  metals 


34  Misuse  of  Legal  Tender. 

whose  relation  to  one  another  is  fixed  and 
motionless. 

The  existing  legal-tender  system  of 
England  makes  gold  coins  the  principal 
legal  tender  (Bank  of  England  notes  are  a 
tender  above  five  pounds  excepting  when 
made  by  the  bank),  but  all  silver  coins  com- 
posed of  less  valuable  material,  and  circu- 
lated above  their  real  value,  or,  in  other 
words,  as  token  coins,  are,  like  our  own 
minor  silver  coins,  a  legal  tender  only  to  a 
limited  amount. 

Jhejiat  theory  of  money — namely,  that 
its  value  can  be  created  and  upheld  by  the 
State  everywhere  within  its  jurisdiction — 
rests  on  the  contention  that  the  State,  by 
its  power  of  deciding  what  shall  be  a  legal 
tender  and  a  discharge  of  all  debts,  can  de- 
termine not  only  what  substance  shall  be 
money,  but  what  within  limits  shall  be  the 
value  of  that  substance.  Legal  tender  is 
the  fulcrum — whether  in  the  case  of  the  fiat 
theory  that  the  value  of  the  money  is  con- 


Misuse  of  Legal  Tender.  35 

trolled  by  the  will  of  the  Government,  or 
in  case  of  the  free-trade  theory  that  the 
value  of  silver  and  gold  is  independent  of 
real  control  by  the  State,  but  is  determined 
by  economic  conditions,  or  in  case  of  the 
bimetallic  theory  which  occupies  a  middle 
ground  between  the  fiat  and  free-trade 
theories. 

The  United  States,  by  the  unmodified 
second  section  of  the  law  of  February  28, 
1878,  stand  committed  to  the  constant  en- 
deavor to  establish  "internationally  the  use 
of  bimetallic  money,"  and  the  fixity  of  rela- 
tive value  between  the  two  metals.  Appro- 
priations were  made  therefor  in  1878,  and 
down  to  1892.  Commissioners  have  re- 
peatedly been  appointed  by  successive  Presi- 
dents, and  sent  to  Europe,  notably  and 
recently  to  the  conference  at  Brussels,  in 
aid  of  that  result.  Under  the  head  of  the 
"  Diplomatic  Service"  there  is  surviving  in 
the  report  by  the  Register  of  the  Treasury 
for  1892  an  unexpended  balance  significantly 


Misuse  of  Legal  Tender. 


described  "International  Remoneti^ation  of 
silver."  If  the  country  and  Congress  have 
turned  their  backs  on  international  bimetal- 
lism, then  longer  taxing  us  to  promote  it  by 
conferences,  or  by  diplomatic  methods, 
seems  rather  incongruous. 

Whatever  is  to  be  the  outcome  of  the 
battle  of  the  standards  —  whether  a  single 
standard,  a  multiple  standard,  or  a  com- 
posite standard  —  let  the  only  legal-ten- 
der dollar  be  that  which  is  the  standard 
dollar. 

Even  a  casual  inspection  of  our  existing 
laws  relating  to  tender  will  disclose  how 
irrational  they  are. 

All  gold  coins  are,  under  the  law  of  1873, 
a  legal  tender,  "in  all  payments,"  at  their 
nominal  value,  when  not  below  the  stand- 
ard weight  and  limit  of  tolerance;  and  if 
below,  then  in  proportion  to  actual  weight. 
They  are  unlimited  legal  tenders.  Nothing 
else  is! 

All  greenback  dollars  are,  under  the  law 


Misuse  of  Legal  Tender.  37 

of  1862,  receivable  in  payment  (i)  of  all 
loans  made  to  the  United  States,  and  (2)  of 
all  taxes,  debts,  and  demands  of  every  kind 
due  to  the  United  States,  "except  duties  on 
imports  and  interest,  and  (})  of  all  claims 
and  demands  against  the  United  States 
"except  for  interest  upon  bonds,  notes,  and 
certificates  of  debts  or  deposit."  They  are 
in  addition  "a  lawful  money,  and  a  legal 
tender  in  payment  of  all  debts,  public  and 
private,  within  the  United  States,  except 
duties  on  imports  and  interest,  as  aforesaid." 
That  law  of  1862  was  the  first  to  make 
anything  "lawful  money"  besides  me- 
tallic money.  Congress  did  not  declare  that 
the  legal-tender  clause  shall  be  retroactive, 
but  the  Supreme  Court  did  so  adjudge. 
Before  that  judgment  came,  and  indeed 
before  the  legal-tender  clause  had  been  by 
the  judicial  power  pronounced  constitu- 
tional, the  court  endeavored  to  rescue 
several  classes  of  "debts "  from  the  clutches 
of  the  law,  such  as  State  taxes,  and  "debts  " 


38  Misuse  of  Legal  Tender. 

payable  specifically  in  coined  dollars  or  in 
gold  dollars. 

All  silver  dollars  are,  under  the  law  of 
1878,  a  legal  tender,  at  their  nominal  value, 
for  all  debts  and  dues,  public  and  private, 
"except  where  otherwise  expressly  stipu- 
lated in  the  contract"]  but  the  silver  coins 
of  smaller  denomination  than  one  dollar  are 
a  legal  tender  in  full  payment  of  dues,  pub- 
lic and  private,  "in  all  sums  not  exceeding 
ten  dollars." 

All  (Sherman)  Treasury  note  dollars  are, 
under  the  law  of  1890,  receivable  for  cus- 
toms (which  by  statute  the  old  greenbacks 
are  not,  although  made  so  by  Treasury 
order  since  1879),  for  taxes,  and  all  public 
dues,  and  "a  legal  tender  in  payment  of  all 
debts,  public  and  private,  except  where 
otherwise  expressly  stipulated  in  the  con- 
tract^ Are  they  payable,  and  to  be  re- 
ceived, for  principal  and  interest  of  the 
public  debt?  The  old  (1862)  greenback 
legal-tender  clause  is,  "all  debts,  public  and 


Misuse  of  Legal  Tender.  39 

private,  except  duties  on  imports  and  in- 
terest, as  aforesaid."  The  silver-dollar 
(1878)  clause  is,  "all  debts  and  dues,  public 
and  private,  except  where  otherwise  ex- 
pressly stipulated  in  the  contract."  That 
clause,  omitting  "dues,"  was  paraphrased 
in  1890. 

The  result  of  the  analysis  is,  that  gold 
coins  are  first  in  precedence,  because  they 
have  unlimited  legal-tender  power.  Silver 
dollars  come  next,  but  are  inferior  to  gold 
coins  when  a  contract  calls  for  them  or  for 
any  other  dollars.  Sherman  Treasury  note 
dollars  come  next,  and  are  superior  to  the 
old  greenbacks,  which  are  really  at  the  foot 
of  the  list. 

Gold  certificate  dollars,  silver  certificate 
dollars,  and  national  bank  note  dollars  are 
not  legal  tenders  in  any  sum  whatever,  and 
should  not  be.  A  gold  dollar  is  the  only 
full  and  unlimited  tender;  it  is  the  "unit  of 
value"  ;  it  is  now  the  standard  to  which 
all  dollars  must  conform ! 


4O  Misuse  of  Legal  Tender. 

If  for  any  reason  the  Treasury  shall  fail 
to  maintain  the  present  local  " parity"  of 
all  our  dollars,  and  the  silver  dollar  shall 
be  in  purchasing  power  no  more  worth 
than  the  gold  value  of  the  silver  therein, 
then  what  will  be  the  legal  effect  of  the 
phrase,  "shall  be  a  legal  tender,  except 
where  otherwise  stipulated  in  the  con- 
tract"; or  rather  (which  is  more  important), 
what  will  the  judicial  power  say  shall  be 
the  legal  effect  ?  The  origin  of  the  phrase 
is  in  the  law  of  1869  "to  strengthen  the 
public  credit."  It  was  novel  in  legal-tender 
legislation  and  literature. 

Will  a  promise  in  a  bond  or  note  to  pay 
gold  dollars,  be  taken  as  an  expressed  stipu- 
lation not  to  make  or  plead  in  court  a  ten- 
der of  silver  dollars  ?  It  surely  should  be 
taken  as  at  least  an  implied  stipulation. 
What  control  will  be  given  to  the  adverb 
"expressly"?  Will  an  expressed  stipu- 
lation to  pay  gold  dollars  be  taken  as  an 
expressed  stipulation  not  to  tender  silver 


Misuse  of  Legal  Tender.  41 

dollars  ?  Must  the  stipulation  "  expressly  " 
cover  tender?  If  when  the  note  or  bond 
falls  due,  and  there  shall  be  a  difference  of 
fifty  per  cent  between  gold  dollars  and 
silver  dollars,  and  the  latter,  having  been 
tendered  at  their  nominal  value  and  refused 
on  a  gold-dollar  contract,  will  the  court  give 
judgment  and  issue  execution  for  gold 
dollars  and  the  plaintiff's  costs  ?  What 
will  our  Supreme  Court  adjudge  if  a  future 
Congress  shall  enact  that  the  present  stand- 
ard silver  dollar  shall  be  a  full  legal  tender 
for  all  private  debts  payable  in  gold  dollars  ? 
Must  those  loaning  or  investing  protect 
themselves  by  stipulating  for  payment  in  a 
specified  weight  of  pure  or  standard  gold, 
as  bullion,  and  only  thus  be  rid  of  the  legal 
consequences  of  using  the  word  "dollars  "  ? 
One  readily  and  naturally  answers,  that 
to  permit  a  contract  calling  for  gold  dollars, 
each  containing  258/IO  standard  gold,  to  be 
satisfied  by  tendering  silver  dollars  each 
worth  only  54  cents  in  gold,  will  be  an  im- 


42  Misuse  of  Legal  Tender. 

pairment  of  the  obligation  of  a  contract,  and 
no  court  will  tolerate  such  impairment. 
But  such  a  one  may  not  have  carefully 
studied  the  reasons  assigned  by  the  Su- 
preme Court  in  Juilliard's  case,  its  aver- 
ment that  the  Federal  Government — mean- 
ing the  law-making  power — is  sovereign  in 
coinage  and  legal  tender,  and  its  intimation 
that,  although  the  Constitution  has  forbidden 
a  State  to  pass  a  law  "impairing  the  obli- 
gation of  contracts,"  no  such  prohibition 
has  been  put  on  Congress. 

A  great  many  investors,  and  not  a  few 
lawyers,  were  startled  when  the  Supreme 
Court  declared  in  its  second  legal-tender 
decision  that  "  the  obligation  of  a  contract 
to  pay  money  is  to  pay  that  which  the  law 
shall  recognize  as  money  when  the  pay- 
ment is  to  be  made."  Not  less  disturbing 
was  the  judicial  announcement  in  the  same 
opinion  that  it  is  incorrect  "to  speak  of  a 
standard  of  values  " ;  that  "  value  is  an  ideal 
thing";  that  "the  gold  or  silver  thing  we 


Misuse  of  Legal  Tender.  43 

call  a  dollar  is  in  no  sense  a  standard  of  a 
dollar,"  but  only  a  representative  of  it. 
Therefore  "an  honest  dollar"  and  "a  legal 
dollar  "  must  be  the  same. 

If  the  perversion  and  misapplication  of 
legal  tender  by  congressional  legislation  is 
to  continue,  it  may  be  that  New  York,  and 
other  self-respecting  States  in  the  Union, 
will  be  constrained  to  consider  whether  or 
not  a  State  law  can  be  constitutionally  en- 
acted and  enforced  which  will  take  care 
that  the  obligation  of  every  future  contract 
made,  or  implied,  for  the  payment  of  dollars 
within  the  State,  but  not  specifying  the 
sort  of  dollars,  shall  be  discharged  only  in 
gold  dollars  (and  in  silver  coins  if  less  than 
one  dollar),  of  the  United  States,  the  same 
being  of  the  weight  and  fineness  fixed  by 
Congress  at  the  time  the  contract  shall  have 
been  made  or  implied. 


THE  END. 

UNIVERSIT1 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW 

AN      INITIAL     FINE     OF     25     CENTS 

WILL  BE  ASSESSED  FOR  FAILURE  TO  RETURN 
THIS  BOOK  ON  THE  DATE  DUE.  THE  PENALTY 
WILL  INCREASE  TO  5O  CENTS  ON  THE  FOURTH 
DAY  AND  TO  $1.OO  ON  THE  SEVENTH  DAY 
OVERDUE. 


APR   10  1933 


111933 


1,1)  21-50m-l,'88 


24217 


107497 


